Broncos Will Try To End Rocky Mountain Low

THE SPORTS COLUMN

DENVER — As the 1991 National Football League kicks off today, optimism pulses in virtually every outpost, visions of playoffs attached to each shining moment of the preseason.

This is the time of the year when every draft pick resembles Walter Payton or Dick Butkus and every head coach can stand up at Kiwanis without a helmet.

One of the exceptions is right here in Colorado, where pro football fanaticism reached a Rocky Mountain high with the old Orange Crush and continued through John Elway's three Super Bowl berths during a four-year stretch through 1989. However, one of the most successful teams in the NFL's modern era took a humbling dive to 5-11 in 1990 and there has been precious little evidence to suggest they won't become full-fledged Denver Disasters this year.

Bad enough that some of the faithful already have derisively reduced them from Broncos to ''Donkeys.'' While residents in most NFL venues are holding hope this morning, Denverites are holding their breath. The fear is explosive Cincinnati may turn the home park into Mile Low Stadium today and expose coach Dan Reeves' rebuilt squad as another woeful 5-11 troupe. You have to go all the way back to '71-72 to find back-to-back losing Broncos squads.

Reeves has taken what is regarded as drastic action to stop the slide. Reeves will let Elway call his own plays for the first time (from a wristband), a move the coach made only after staffers told him he had to do something to ease the strained relationship with his quarterback that was threatening to destroy the team.

Reeves also met with a group of 11 veterans, including Elway, after Friday's practice for an open-agenda rap session intended to become a weekly staple. ''I really want to get more input from them, try to listen to their suggestions and ideas, because when it comes to getting players ready, the team can have more of an effect than the coaches,'' says Reeves.

Critics view the move as a long-overdue admission that he has fallen short in motivating the Broncs' wealth of talent the past decade. That talent level now appears to be markedly lower.

All-Pro linebacker Karl Mecklenburg turns 31 today. A glitzy receiver corps popularized as the Three Amigos has become suspect, particularly with the summer distractions of artsy iconoclast Vance Johnson. ''The Vance,'' as he likes to be called, spent three days in jail after playing bumper cars with his ex-wife's auto. Upon his release, he reported back to camp featuring a bizarre, lopsided hairdo you'd more expect on Diana Ross. Then came Thursday's revelation that he is the defendant in yet another paternity suit. Ex-Gators wideout Ricky Nattiel was a holdout and reported to camp late and out of shape. Mark Jackson will be the only Amigo in today's starting lineup.

But the darkest news has been the prolonged holdout by Bobby Humphrey. A 1,000-yard gainer in each of his first two seasons, Humphrey remains unsigned and the gulf appears to be widening.

The underlying tone is that Humphrey, a product of the Deep South, simply doesn't want to play in chilly Denver. That's a premise repugnant to Broncos fans who seem to forget their own beloved quarterback arrived under the same conditions when Elway stiff-armed Baltimore.

''Oh, Bobby will be back,'' Broncos owner Pat Bowlen said Saturday with an air of casual confidence, ''but you have to wonder if he's thrown away his career. Not many backs have been able to come in after a long holdout and be very effective that season. And Bobby is the kind of player who doesn't have that many seasons.''

On the eve of the season opener, Bowlen shared a Saturday afternoon round of golf with Reeves' top offensive assistant, Mike Shanahan, and a visiting sports writer at toney Castle Pines Golf Club. Shanahan, a onetime Florida Gator offensive coordinator and Los Angeles Raiders head coach for Al Davis in a brief marriage made in hell, is widely regarded as Bowlen's hand-picked successor to Reeves.

Shanahan insists he was given no ironclad promise by Bowlen that he'd be the next Broncos coach when he returned to Denver after the misadventure with the Raiders. But insiders insist he declined recent invitations to interview for other NFL head-coaching vacancies at a time any Bronco assistant would be excused for jumping ship.